ducks at Pakenham Upper

During my stay in Melbourne in January this year (2011) there was a day trip to a small farm in Pakenham Upper.  Perfect day with lunch consisting of good fresh bread, butter (not margarine) and home-made raspberry jam made from the raspberry bushes which feature in the first pictures, along with a cup of tea.  There was a walk down to the dam and of course the ducks came as well.  

The kids enjoyed the photo op as much as the ducks, and of course the dog wanted to get in the picture or did he just want to molest the duck?  Best leave that train of thought alone.  

And the adults were in there as well giving the ducks a helping hand!  Lovely day.

And I ate a few fresh raspberries as well and, boy, they tasted good!

Yep, that duck sure looks good!

There was one big duck .....

...... and then there were two.

Note Maj duck soaking up the sunshine before the trek in New Zealand -
Maj has the pink top and mauve crown at the bottom middle of photo

And now it's time to say goodbye!!!

Picnic at Versigny

I seem to have had a hiatus for several months.  That's okay.  Life changes for a moment and then it gets back on track.  Since I have last written, the duck collection has grown to 25 ducks and waiting on another five coming from the USA and the UK.   My sister Kerry and my daughter Rosa have been responsible for a good number of these ducks.

Back to the point of this blog.  It was about putting up more photos of the ducks in Europe.  So I will go straight into it.  I have posted the Ducks in Paris and the Ducks in Champagne. Just needed to refresh where I am.

Ahh, picnic in Versigny. Yes.

We found this spot by accident, driving through the French countryside.
We were looking for a picnic spot and really could not get any better than this.  The food consisted of bread, cheese and pastries we had purchased in Reims as we left that beautiful city.

The wine we found in a very local wine merchant's house in the village of Versigny and it cost a whole 2.50 euros.  So we now had food, wine and the perfect picnic spot.  All as we needed was something to open the bottle with (not many screw caps in Europe) and something to drink the wine from that did not involve passing around the bottle, though we have done that before.  I was the only one out of the four who had a bottle opener and of course it was in my suitcase which was jammed in with all the other luggage in the back of the station wagon.  This was produced after not too much of a struggle.  For drinking vessels we used the little red with white polka dot rammikins that Rosa had bought in a kitchenware shop in Reims.  This shop was right next door to the cheese shop which was our excuse for wandering into it and looking around.

All in all, a gorgeous picnic and one of the highlights of our European trip for the spontaneity and fun.

With, of course, the ducks.